Blatter aims to please everyone – but there’s no sign of a solution

FIFA President Sepp Blatter visited Palestine, Jordan and Israel over the 25th to 27th May when he tackled the vexed question of how to reduce the repression of Palestinian football by Israel through FIFA’s “Task Force”.

In Ramallah on Monday he with AFC President Prince Ali of Jordan and PFA President Jibril Rajoub. In a series of forceful statements, giving some of the most explicit support to the PFA to date, he said that he is determined to solve the Palestinian Football Association’s on-going problems with Israel. Blatter told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a meeting on Monday that “we shall find a solution” but that “it will not be so easy to deal on the other side,” meaning Israel.

Palestinian FA President Jibril Rajoub has often insisted (see earlier posts) that if the Task Force does not succeed then sanctions must be taken against the Israeli Football Association (IFA), including suspension or expulsion.

On Tuesday Blatter met the Israeli Prime Minister and President Luzon of the Israeli Football Association. Then he leant back on FIFA regulations, saying that he couldn’t see any breaches of the Statutes by the IFA, so sanctions like suspensions could not be taken against the IFA. He even invoked the unbelievable “politics and sport don’t mix” and then praised the IFA as a “good standing member” of FIFA – forgetting about the Beitar club’s racism

This campaign has pointed out that the complicity of the IFA in the actions of the Israeli state mean that it has indeed broken the FIFA Statute 3.